Meet our Partners, Part I
The EC² project brings all these actors together to explore how to facilitate and strengthen energy citizenship to support the EU’s decarbonisation goals.
It’s a project at the intersection of academia and practice, that crosses disciplines and sectors to gain a unique perspective on the barriers and enablers to creating a citizen-led energy transition. We are researchers and academics from the fields of law, economics and psychology; on-the-ground energy communities; municipalities, policy experts and more, spanning across six countries. You can read more about our objectives here.
In the coming weeks, we'll be introducing our partners: they’ll tell us why they think this project is so important, and what we can look forward to during the next three years of this in-depth collaboration that will deliver tools for energy communities, actionable policy recommendations to support a citizen-centred energy transition, and much more.
Yu-Yi Huynh, Just Transition Officer from ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability. ICLEI is a global network of over 2500 local and regional governments committed to sustainable urban development.
Elisabeth Unterfrauner, Judith Feichtinger and Maria Schrammel, the project team from ZSI - Centre for Social Innovation, a non-profit institute for applied social sciences based in Vienna (Austria).
Katja Corcoran from the University of Graz Institute of Psychology and one of the project’s originators.
ICLEI: ICLEI is committed to just transitions in cities. We are excited to join EC2 because the active involvement and empowerment of the people in the energy sector is at the core of the project. Clean and renewable energy transition cannot be achieved without the engagement of everyone. I look forward to discussing and supporting decision-makers and local actors in their journey towards more inclusive energy citizenship and energy communities!
ZSI: We were asked to become the coordinators of EC2 when the preparation for the proposal had already started. The academic partners had begun drafting the idea which convinced us from the start. The interdisciplinary conceptualisation of energy citizenship with expertise from three different fields, i.e. psychology, economics, and law, promised to allow for an integrated perspective. Also we felt that we with our experience in EU funded projects, not only in the role as coordinators but also as transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary research partners, could complement the consortium and the proposal very well.
Uni. Graz: Based on previous cooperation between the Institute of Psychology and the Faculty of Law at the University Graz and the university’s research focus on regulatory processes as well as climate change, we felt this particular H2020 call was a perfect match – therefore we initiated the work on the proposal for the EC2 project.
ICLEI: ICLEI is committed to just transitions in cities. We are excited to join EC2 because the active involvement and empowerment of the people in the energy sector is at the core of the project. Clean and renewable energy transition cannot be achieved without the engagement of everyone. I look forward to discussing and supporting decision-makers and local actors in their journey towards more inclusive energy citizenship and energy communities!
ZSI: Citizens play a key role in the low-carbon transition and it is thus important to understand which factors lead to energy citizenship and also which barriers might be hindering. As energy communities have been sprouting in the past years also due to changes in EU and national law, energy communities seemed to be the perfect use case for studying energy citizenship and its relation with energy communities. Finding out about the trajectories in the long run helps to foster energy citizenship in the wider public and establishing further energy communities.
Uni. Graz: We strongly believe that the energy transition has to be designed with the people and for the people. Citizens can’t wait for the government to present a solution, but at the same time, the government has the responsibility to create a framework that makes citizen’s involvement possible and easy. Energy citizenship and energy communities are important stepping stones on this transition. As a university, we want to use our expertise and scientific methodology to substantiate this endeavor.
ICLEI: The project will use many interesting methods and tools to make the project knowledge accessible for different audiences (Energy Citizenship Briefings, Policy Dialogues, Energy Citizenship Academy etc.). I am especially excited about our Empowerment Kits which seek to strengthen inclusivity in energy citizenship. These informative, accessible and inspiring kits aren’t targeted just for the decision-makers but citizens from different social groups and backgrounds, interested in being involved in the energy transition.
ZSI: We are excited about the complementarity of the consortium, to have all the different perspectives on board, from the academic side to the practical side with energy communities and municipalities. We think that good things will come out of our joint efforts, that the theoretical understanding will lead to practical tools which of course shall sustain the end of the project.
Uni. Graz: With this project, we are at the forefront of a very dynamic development and have the opportunity to participate in the creation of a new thinking in the energy sector – an energy sector, in which energy is more than a commodity and people are more than consumers.
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